


Ghost Stories Come in Many Forms

by Pres310



Series: Wild Witches, Wilder Magic [1]
Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Possibly Horror, Propaganda, Short Story, The Emperor's Coven (The Owl House), The Lumity is established and very minor, choir, might develop into a further story, sorry Lumity stans, test, the emperor has a Choir for indoctrination reasons, trying new things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27127531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pres310/pseuds/Pres310
Summary: The Emperor's Coven has many twisted branches- and the Emperor's Choir, the least popular and lowest ranked of them all, has suddenly made itself more known after a particularly public incident...
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Series: Wild Witches, Wilder Magic [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988593
Comments: 3
Kudos: 24





	Ghost Stories Come in Many Forms

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is a strange one, huh?
> 
> To be honest- I don't know where this idea came from, but I don't hate it. I've been tossing around the idea of writing a multi-chapter fic based around Eda's past or the growing rebellion in the Isles, but I didn't want to fully commit to something only to abandon it. Again. So, here's a little tale about some familiar characters beginning to see through the propaganda they've been taught. 
> 
> Lastly- I kept listening to "March of The Witch Hunters" from "Wicked" while writing this... and it does kind of fit, if you want to take a listen while reading this.

Ghost Stories Come in Many Forms.

  
From the night critters that jab about and cackle like little broken alarm clocks, flat forms framed in felt midnight and breaths bathed in boiling bracken bay water-

  
From the wildly kind owl whose nest crackled and popped like a hearth, whose wings would welcome any lost being with hearty laughter and well wishes on their journey-

  
From the fool in his crown with his Deer teeth and deadened dove’s wings and mirror maze, dipped in the grace and romance of a bird who was really just another pigeon who lived greasy and ravenous with hunger-

  
From the meringue skin of a young girl stretched thin over bones with deep hollows that ached as the sun cupped the ghost in its loving hands and with pinioned wings and Whose crown of flowers were slowly ripped from auburn hair, leaving mint stems behind-

  
To the Emperor’s Choir.

  
Technically, they really were just the emperor’s Coven. Part of it, at least.

  
The Coven itself had many branches, they all served their own purpose, like a multitude of tree branches grafted to an ancient and twisting dying trunk. The branches would never reach for the sky, would never reach for the clouds that drifted just above their reach, would never graze the wind with childlike wonder. They would stay rooted to that ancient trunk. And the ancient trunk would stay silent and hidden behind the cacophony of colors that all bled into the grey of dove’s wings. Or were those pigeon’s wings?

  
The Emperor’s Choir gave a performance once a year at Hexide. It was almost as celebrated as Grom- with just as much sacrifice and a startling lack of unease- and the students of each track preceded the performance with shows of their own track’s higher accomplishments. It was terrible. It was wonderful.

  
Amity didn't even know how she got out of performing with the abomination track, but she did, and now she found herself sitting at the very back row of the school’s auditorium with Luz, Gus, and Willow. As the students and staff hummed around them- the Choir had insisted on there being an intermission between the school’s and the Choir’s performances- Amity glanced at Luz to see the girl nervously fidgeting as her eyes darted about. A silent understanding passed between the two as Amity slid her hand over Luz’s and gave it a small squeeze. Luz inched towards Amity, the two girls pressed warmly together from shoulder to knee. Willow, sensing that something was wrong, tilted her head back slightly to rest on Luz’s knee. A less silent misunderstanding buzzed around the crowd around them, the school fizzing with excitement at the chance to see the mysterious branch of the emperor’s Coven perform.

  
The four waited for the show to begin, each second passing by as if the show had started an hour late. The seconds passed by taunting and anxious- why hadn't it started yet? Had something horrible yet? It wasn't even late, but the expanse of time that took up the intermission stretched on too long. An unspoken understanding was shared between the four teens- Luz had overheard Eda and Bump’s whispered conversation the night before. Something about keeping Luz and the multi-track students out of sight.

  
“What’s propaganda?” Gus asked the next day at lunch when Luz had relayed the tale. 

  
“It's when a British person takes a good look at something,” Luz jested, despite the fact that it then flew over the group’s collective heads, and despite the fact that her clear anxiety did not fly over their heads.

  
Even if they didn't fully understand the circumstances, they knew it was safer to hide in the shadowy back row of the auditorium with their friends. And it wasn't like they minded- they were friends, after all. It should feel nice to all be sitting together, right?

  
Finally, the auditorium lights fled from sight as the room sank into darkness. Lights came up onstage, blindingly sterile and bright white, like the hot center of a flame. It took Amity a moment to realize that it wasn't just the lights, it was the sharp glow of the lights reflecting off of dozens of identical Coven members as they stood like winning chess pieces onstage. Oddly enough, they all still donned their masks- that couldn't have aided their singing, could it? Amity didn't know why she expected some sort of introduction speech for the performance. She didn't know why she expected an explanation.

  
Instead, the singing began and the crowd instantly silenced. The quiet beginnings of a song began tentatively, a lullaby luring everybody’s eyes to the stage. The song contained the sticky warmth of a fever, the lyrics hitting everywhere except for where they should. As the song grew into an angry crescendo, a shared tension made the group around Amity tense up in their seats.   
  
Amity briefly remembered when Edric and Emira had recently snuck her out to a theater- apparently an old friend of theirs was performing. The music was just as loud, the harmonies just as complex, and the group sat in a theater that was just as dark. Of course, the theater there was so much smaller and tighter, the crowd warmer and looser. The sets and costumes were cheap and the acts were crude and tacky. But the music- the harmonies hit Amity in a way that almost made her cry with joy. It made her want to dance, it made her want to do something- it carried energy, it carried life itself. It left Amity shaking- it was the best performance Amity had ever seen. She missed that theatre and she thought her friends would love it. Eda would've loved it.

  
The Emperor’s Choir froze Amity cold in her seat. The high notes pierced her ears- she was surprised that Willow’s glasses didn't warp and shatter. They were high and sharp as a needle but stretched with harmonies that felt like a straight drop into the abyss. The words were harsh and sharp, more like shouting dogma than flowing words and poetry. A piano had started at some point- the repeating, twitching set of notes stumbled like frightened feet running through the forest. The tempo of the song picked up in speed, short solo stanzas and lines shouted out from an assortment of choir members, and the low notes of the song opened up like a void. Amity’s joints turned to jelly, and she found herself squeezing Luz’s hand tightly.

  
At the end of it all, the crowd around them stood up to clap and cheer and whistle. The multi-track students staggered slightly behind, a strange sort of catch in their movements. Gus and Willow stood to clap- but they seemed just as uncomfortable as Amity and Luz. Their clapping was a mere courtesy, and Amity soon realized, a cover for the two girls as they sat still in their seats. They just… couldn't return that courtesy. Something told them that under no circumstances should they ever do that. And that something sounded suspiciously like Eda- so naturally, they both trusted it.

  
It was the start of something- but unlike that dingy theater Amity had been snuck out to, there was the lingering, greasy feeling that it was the start of something bad. Where the air should have been light around them with the amusement and joy of a standing ovation, it was fatty and tense. Amity had trouble breathing, and the awe the rest of the school seemed to be in twisted something sharp and sorrowful in Amity.

  
It wasn't supposed to be like this- something was so wrong here.

**Author's Note:**

> Truthfully, I think that "what's propaganda?" Line (along with a lot of other small things) would have worked better if I'd had the group been enchanted with the performance while Luz sat back nervously, but it felt a bit out of character. And part of me liked the idea of the group coming to the dawning realization that something around them is very wrong.


End file.
